(Trigger Warning: Blood, murder, war crime) A disturbing, undated video circulating online appears to show Russian soldiers executing five unarmed men reportedly identified by some handles as Ukrainian military drone operators. Neither the source nor the location and date of the footage could be independently verified.
The clip shows four men kneeling or lying in a line with their hands behind their heads. A soldier in full gear approaches at close range and shoots them. After the initial rounds, the soldier fires again, apparently to ensure fatal wounds, targeting the victims’ heads. A fifth man, positioned several metres behind the group, is then shot after the first four are left motionless.
According to posts accompanying the video, Russian drone operators watched from a UAV and can be heard cheering and laughing as blood flows from the victims’ heads. The footage drew outrage on social media, with pro-Kyiv accounts calling it evidence of war crimes and accusing Moscow of routinely executing prisoners of war.
Pro-Moscow accounts offered a counter-narrative, claiming the men were war criminals who had used drones to target Russian civilians and describing the killings as “battlefield justice.” The Week said it could not independently verify the video or the competing claims.
The video circulated as officials from Europe, the United States and Ukraine met in Geneva to discuss a U.S.-presented draft plan to end the war. U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly gave Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a Thursday deadline to accept a 28-point plan that would require territorial concessions, limits on Ukraine’s military and renunciation of NATO ambitions. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine entered its fourth year, and Moscow is expected to object to parts of the proposal that would require it to withdraw from captured areas.
